


Wings of a Goose

by ERNest



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Religion, Repression, abuse is mentioned but not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 03:18:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17614412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: Mlle. Gillenormand the Elder only occasionally regretted that keeping such tight grip on her given name meant being publicly known by her father’s.





	Wings of a Goose

     She didn’t tell anyone her name, _ever_. In the beginning she was saving it for her future husband, in the expectation that the sound would be all the sweeter for its years of disuse. As those years went on, however, and it became clear that there would be no husband in the future, she still kept it to herself. No one she knew deserved this part of her. The idea of that happening without her permission was almost as bad as the memory of the man who saw her garter once.

     Mlle. Gillenormand the Elder only occasionally regretted that keeping such tight grip on her given name meant being publicly known by her father’s. Somehow it wasn’t enough that she managed his household for little thanks, or that their evening guests had no idea how he behaved when no one else was watching. Well. She took comfort that her inheritance was greater than his.

     She found another source of relief twice ever week: Sunday mornings she brought her young nephew to the cathedral for mass; and again on Thursday evening she would visit the chapel alone for a quieter form of worship. This was the one place her father could reliably allow her to go, but where he would not deign to follow.

     In the chapel could be found a woman who was almost a friend. Mlle. Vaubois did not spend nearly as much time as she did in contemplation, but she showed up each week and seemed to believe in her plodding steadfast way. Somehow they got to nodding to each other before they slipped into their respective pews, and then without either one having introduced herself they began to greet each other by title. But even after Blandina started coming over for tea, armed with preserves she’d made herself, the remaining daughter of Gillenormand did not give her given name. Blandina never pushed for more, for which she was grateful — she would have regretted losing a friend.

     Her nephew was hardly ever called Marius, and she sometimes wondered if he even knew that was his name. If that was true, she believed he was better off for it, with one less thing to have used against him — but that was a choice the boy should make for himself. Many things were better than “rogue” or “scamp” or “poor child,” to be sure. Marius said very little in front of her father and tended to cry once he was gone, but she was not inclined to be indulgent.

     She watched the boy grow up until he was a man carrying around cards with a fake title he’d gotten from his brigand of a father. But he had no one to hand them to, so what good was a name to him anyway, she sniffed.


End file.
